iMovie '11: Export your movies to a Finder folder

Export your movies to a Finder folder

If you want to create a finished version of your project that you can access on your desktop or in any Finder folder, you need to export it. You can then attach it to an email, and use it with other applications that don’t have access to iTunes and the Media Browser.

To export your project to the Finder:

In iMovie, open the project or select it in the Project Library, and then choose Share > Export Movie.

The Share menu appears in a light gray bar across the top of your computer screen.

Type a name for the movie in the Export As field.

Choose the location where you want to save it from the pop-up menu.

If the location you want doesn’t appear in the pop-up menu, click the blue Arrow button to the right of the Save As field, and then navigate to the desired folder.

Select the size of movie that best matches what you’ll be using the video for.

The table shows which sizes are best for each viewing device or location, and the resolution of each size (how many pixels it contains).

The resolution of the exported movie for each size depends on the aspect ratio (standard or widescreen) you chose when you created the project. This topic explains resolution in more detail: About image resolution of shared projects.

If you’re unable to select the larger sizes, the original project media isn’t large enough to render in that size. The size of the largest media used in the project determines the final movie sizes you can render.

Holding the pointer over the “i” next to the movie dimensions displays the following information for the rendered movies:

H.264 or 3GP:

The video compression that’s used in the movie.

fps:

The frame rate of the movie in frames per second.

Kbps or Mbps:

The data rate of the movie in kilobits per second or megabits per second.

MB:

The size of the movie file in megabytes.

Click Export.

To find your exported movie, navigate to the folder that you chose from the pop-up menu.